Two car bombs exploded outside the headquarters of the government’s Trade Bank of Iraq in central Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 18 people and injuring 42, a security official said.
The bank is one of the public sector’s most active financial institutions and at the forefront of efforts to encourage foreign investment in Iraq as the sectarian violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion fades.
A week earlier, gunmen and suicide bombers laid siege to Iraq’s central bank in Baghdad, killing 15 people.
Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi said two car bombs were involved.
A bank source said the building was badly damaged in the blasts and several bank guards were killed. At least two of the dead were police officers guarding a nearby Interior Ministry office that issues Iraqi identity cards, ministry sources said.
Iraqi security officials blamed the June 13 central bank attack on Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al-Qaeda, saying they were trying to prove they remained a force kmafter suffering significant blows this year, including the killing of their top leaders.
Overall violence has dropped sharply since the all-out sectarian warfare of 2006 to 2007, but tension has been simmering since an election in March which produced no clear winner and which has yet to yield a government.
Daily shootings and bombings frequently target Iraqi security forces, government officials or former Sunni insurgents who switched sides.
The political uncertainty threatens to muddy US intentions to end combat operations in August ahead of a full US withdrawal by the end of next year.
While there was no outright winner of the March 7 election, a merger of the country’s main Shiite-led coalitions in the new parliament is expected to squeeze out the vote leader, a cross-sectarian alliance heavily backed by minority Sunnis, in the competition to form a government.
Meanwhile, a protest over electricity shortages in oil-rich southern Iraq turned deadly when police opened fire to disperse a crowd, killing one protester, in a melee that indicated growing anger over the government’s failure to provide basic services.
More than 3,000 protesters marched through Basra on Saturday, which suffers from searing summer temperatures that can reach 50°C and high humidity. They carried banners and chanted angry slogans demanding a solution to the power cuts that persist despite billions of dollars in reconstruction money since the 2003 US-led invasion.
The demonstration turned violent when protesters started throwing stones and advanced on the Basra provincial council building, setting fire to a guard’s cabin and prompting government security forces to fire into the air to disperse the crowd.
Police and hospital officials said one man was killed and three others wounded.
The Iraqi public has become increasingly frustrated over the government’s inability to provide power, clean water and other utilities despite security gains that have led to a sharp drop in war-related violence in recent years.
Within hours of the protester’s death in Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a delegation of officials to the city to address their concerns. He urged restraint, saying those responsible for the shortage would be punished, but did not spell out how the problem would be remedied.
Complicating the issue is the failure of Iraq’s politicians to reach agreement on a new government more than three months after the inconclusive March 7 elections.
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